Posted on behalf of Heidi Ledford

A controversial lawsuit got the green light to move forward yesterday when the California Supreme Court rejected Wyeth’s protests against a previous ruling that Wyeth could be held liable for side effects caused by a drug it did not make.

Plaintiff Elizabeth Conte says that she developed a neurological condition (called tardive dyskinesia) after taking a drug called metoclopramide. Metoclopramide is sold under the brand name Reglan by Wyeth, but Conte took a generic version of the drug manufactured and sold by other companies.

Nevertheless, Conte alleges that her doctor relied on drug labelling and a write-up in the Physician’s Desk Reference that were supplied by Wyeth. That labelling, she says, underplayed the risks of the drug. She tried to sue the generics manufacturers as well, but was unable to satisfactorily show that her doctor paid any attention to their labelling. The doctor did recall reading Wyeth’s labels, and so a California Appellate Court decided last November that her case against Wyeth could proceed.

The November decision riled bloggers (for example, In the Pipeline and Drug and Device Law, which said the decision fell for the ‘Lipstick on a Pig fallacy’ “snout, line, and mascara”.) The San Francisco Chronicle notes that the California court decisions contrast with previous findings in other states, but the California appellate court argues that it is fair to hold Wyeth responsible, given that brand-name manufacturers provide much of the data used to approve generics.

Top image: Metoclopramide, the compound that caused all the problems. Fvasconcellos/Wikipedia.